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Holiday display recovers from Front Range winds

Christmas in Color opens with drive-through light display

A long archway of Christmas lights are tested at Water World Nov. 29 in Federal Heights. The lights are part of the facility’s “Christmas In Color” display, which had been blown down during last weekend’s snowstorm and had to be reconstructed.

PHOTOS BY Stefan Brodsky

John Hague of Salt Lake City, a project manager with Christmas In Color, does some testing of electrical connections at Water World in Federal Heights Nov. 29. High winds Nov. 24 knocked down some of the taller displays, forcing technicians to spend most of the following week rebuilding the display. The display was scheduled to open Nov. 24, but did finally open a week later.

Water World’s Christmas lights are tested Nov. 29 ahead of the formal Nov. 30 opening. Much of the “Christmas in Color” display in Federal Heights had blown down during the Thanksgiving weekend snowstorm and had to be rebuilt.

The drive-through Christmas lights display in Water World’s parking lot was designed for all sorts of wintry weather — but not Front Range winds.

That’s changed now, according to Christmas in Color representative Melissa Smuzynski. The display was set to open on Black Friday, Nov. 23 in the Water World parking lot.

Two days of high winds played havoc with the display, sending designers back to the drawing board to come up with some Colorado friendly — lower profile, in other words — designs.

“It was a bit of unfortunate weather for us, that’s for sure,” Smuzynski said. “Those winds toppled over some of our bigger displays and broke quite a few light bulbs. What we are creating this display with is fragile, so a lot of lights had to be replaced.”

The revamped display kicked off the season Nov. 30 and will run nightly through Dec. 31 beginning at 5:30 p.m. Smuzynski said the revised design does away with some of the taller displays, especially a Christmas tree.

“We had to reevaluate,” she said. “Some of the taller displays, the really tall trees, were replaced with a different type of element that won’t take a direct hit from the wind.”

Water World is located at 8801 N.Pecos St., Federal Heights.

The program, called Christmas in Color, has been designed by Utah-based Ice Castles, LLC and Holdman Lighting, the group that designed the Ice Castles in Dillon. The company is currently running programs similar to the one in Federal Heights in Utah and Arizona.

Smuzynski said the displays in other states were designed to stand up to all sorts weather.

“We had one location last year in Provo, Utah that had damage on a much smaller scale,” she said. “We never had to deal with anything this extensive. Weather is always a factor, whether it’s snow storms or wind or rain, we need to be able to deal with it.”

The display features millions of LED lights synchronized to favorite holiday tunes. The highlight is the tunnel, a football field-long lighted archway featuring thousands computer-controlled lights.

“The lights all change color and are synced to music,” Smuzynski said. “It’s a tunnel of arching lights they’ll display pictures of Santa Claus or words like `Ho Ho Ho’ and moving pictures on the lights.”

Tickets to see the lights cost $25 per vehicle and can be purchased online at www.christmasincolor.net. Ticket prices increase to $30 on Fridays and Saturdays Dec. 19 through 24.

Vehicles taller than 10 feet, limos and cars pulling trailers are not allowed. Drivers and passengers must purchase a ticket, have it scanned by event staff and then will be directed to turn their car radio to a specific station.

Smuzynski said that people that purchased advance tickets for the week between Nov. 23 and 30 were given refunds or had their tickets moved later in the display’s season.